Here is an interview with Nicholas Wade, the long time NYT science writer , whose recent article posted previously on the possible lab leak hypothesis seems to have gotten the US to consider it seriously. They discuss the evidence for both sides and Nicolas concludes he finds the lab the more plausible at this point
Nicholas Wade: the case for the Covid lab-leak theory - The Post (30min video, seemed fine at 1.75x speed)
The hospital employee lawsuit was dismissed, appeal planned.
Not surprised the lower court judge didn’t want to deal with the case. Probably makes sense because an appeal was going to happen regardless.
I dont like the argument about being forced to participate in a clinical trial. I agree with it in principle, but general consensus is that approval of the vaccines will come regardless - meaning that argument has a pretty limited relevancy regardless.
My argument would focus on the vaccine being necessary to perform the job. Because it is not; ignoring that in most cases there is no acute danger to being with, the vaccine does not make it any safer for the employees nor the patients compared to other non-vaccine based criteria.
I think you’ll see that argument from other employees (maybe the ones at the commissioner of revenue i linked to), but I think the employees’ lawyers in this case are advising them (well) that since they work at a hospital, it is unlikely that argument will fly in their case.
I dont think the setting matters for this argument. People without the vaccine can be as “protected” as anyone with the vaccine, and people with the vaccine can be as much of a risk as anyone without the vaccine. There is additional criteria, both prior to being vacinated and after being vaccinated, that must be met for the vaccine to have a material effect on one’s safety.
Novavax efficiency at ~90%:
NVAX - good news, and similarly against the variants too, at least the UK one which was definitely around when they were testing.
Guess I should have held my NVAX long, but BNTX (betting on PFE vaccine) has been doing very well.
TX hospitalizations on the way up again. Thanks Abbott and other domestic terrorists spreading anti-vaxx lies and disinformation.
How have they been so successful at spreading their disinformation in MA,CO,NJ,PA,CA,MD,OH AND IL, all of which are more left leaning than TX and also have fewer reported covid variants currently?
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/variant-cases.html
They don’t seem to be a hot spot for overall new cases either, compared to the rest of the country.
Does this map look familiar? Maybe to a map from… I don’t know… December of last year?
Sure. That happens when you shut down testing in the state(s). And you can obviously more easily create a downtrend week over week when you start at an astronomically high number… week over week case numbers trends per state in case numbers has a very marginal informational value.
Hospitalization rates can also be faked down if testing is restricted, but is otherwise less open to manipulation.
Try arguing that in court where the general consensus is that people visiting hospitals are often immunocompromised and can’t get vaccinated and are safer with only vaccinated people around them. Whether that is 100% true or not, it’s likely what a judge or jury would believe if presented with it as fact.
How have they shut down testing? Are CVS, Walgreens , and every doctor’s office in Texas prohibited by law from conducting COVID tests?
A good article on translating CCP to English, the Wuhan edition.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/beijing-protests-a-lab-leak-too-much-11623598397?mod=opinion_lead_pos5
https://archive.is/3ORi6
Many years ago a distinguished Chinese writer, Wu Zuxiang, explained to me that there is truth in Communist Party pronouncements, but you have to read them “upside down.” If a newspaper says “the Party has made great strides against corruption in Henan,” then you know that corruption has recently been especially bad in Henan.
Borrowing Wu Zuxiang’s technique of reading “upside down,” what the Fang Fang campaign tells us is that Xi Jinping is extremely worried that the world will hold his regime responsible for the pandemic. The most radioactive question has been where the virus originated.
I will need considerable persuading that the disease came from bats or a wet market. The linguistic evidence is overwhelming that Chinese leaders believe the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the source.
Here are the bats they denied were being kept in the Wuhan lab. Old video found talking up the labs prospects several years ago makes it clear recent Chinese and conflicted US virologists have been lying to us to cover up evidence that points towards the lab leak possibility.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology kept live bats in cages, new footage from inside the facility has revealed, disproving denials from World Health Organisation investigators who claimed the suggestion was a “conspiracy”.
An official Chinese Academy of Sciences video to mark the launch of the new biosafety level 4 laboratory in May 2017 speaks about the security precautions that are in place if “an accident” occurs and reveals there had been “intense clashes” with the French Government during the construction of the laboratory.
The video shows bats being held in a cage at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, along with vision of a scientist feeding a bat with a worm. The 10 minute video is titled “The construction and research team of Wuhan P4 laboratory of Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences” and features interviews with its leading scientists.
The World Health Organisation report investigating the origin of the pandemic failed to mention that any bats had been kept at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and only its annex referred to animals being housed there. “The animal room in the P4 facility can handle a variety of species, including primate work with SARS-CoV-2,” it states.
A member of the World Health Organisation team investigating the origin of the pandemic in Wuhan, zoologist Peter Daszak said it was a conspiracy to suggest bats were held at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In one tweet dated December, 2020 he said: “No BATS were sent to Wuhan lab for genetic analysis of viruses collected in the field. That’s now how this science works. We collect bat samples, send them to the lab. We RELEASE bats where we catch them!” In another tweet, dated December 11, 2020, he said: “This is a widely circulated conspiracy theory. This piece describes work I’m the lead on and labs I’ve collaborated with for 15 years. They DO NOT have live or dead bats in them. There is no evidence anywhere that this happened. It’s an error I hope will be corrected.”
This month, Daszak appeared to retract his earlier denials and admitted the Wuhan Institute of Virology may have housed bats but admitted he had not asked them.
Hard hitting investigation by the WHO team, hand picked by China for their aligned interests.
Powerful stuff, xerty.
That is akin to the Fauci statement, from years ago, that I posted earlier . . . . . back where I posted that the “internet never forgets”.
The evidence to prove what happened, to nail down origins, is likely already out there. We may not need the cooperation of the Chinese Communist Party . . . . which is hardly likely to materialize within this century anyway.
Ivermectin blog comments
To figure out if a source is reliable, a quick shortcut is to figure out if that source addresses all of the randomized controlled trials performed so far or if they focus on selective evidence that supports their position. For example, the GAVI vaccine alliance uses Google Adwords to promote misleading information about ivermectin. They cherry pick the Medina-Lopez et al. study because those researchers concluded that their evidence did not support ivermectin use. If you read the study, you will see that the data actually leans towards ivermectin use. Nobody died in the ivermectin group while 1 person died in the control group. The primary endpoint also would have favoured ivermectin use but the researchers decided to move the goalposts around by changing endpoints midway. 174 doctors have signed a letter calling for the study paper to be retracted due to its unsupported conclusion.
“Trust the science”, but the scientists were too caught up in politics to admit any idea Trump mentioned might be true.
“At the time, it was scarier to be associated with Trump and to become a tool for racists, so people didn’t want to publicly call for an investigation into lab origins,” she said.
Maybe now that there’s $3B to be had, someone will figure out if ivermectin really works?
